{"doi":"10.31234/osf.io/f27jm_v1","title":"Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy Increases Self-Compassion in Patients with Alcohol Use Disorder","abstract":"A recent randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group trial (NCT02061293) found that psilocybin-assisted therapy significantly improved drinking outcomes compared to an active placebo in adults with alcohol use disorder (AUD). In this secondary analysis, we assessed whether psilocybin-assisted therapy improved self-compassion and whether these changes predicted drinking outcomes. Of the 95 participants enrolled, 86 had self-compassion and drinking outcome data. Forty-four participants were randomized to 2 medication sessions with psilocybin and forty-two to active-placebo control (diphenhydramine); all participants received 12 sessions of manualized psychotherapy. Psilocybin-assisted therapy robustly increased compassionate self-responding (CS) and decreased uncompassionate self-responding (UCS), with the largest effect sizes observed in reducing UCS components (Self-Judgment, Isolation, Over-Identification). Across the full sample, small but significant correlations emerged between improvements in self-compassion and reductions in drinking. However, group-specific analyses revealed that participants in the control group exhibited moderate associations between gains in self-compassion and decreased drinking, whereas no significant association was observed in the psilocybin group. In both groups, these associations were stronger among participants who maintained moderate-to-high-risk drinking during the first four weeks of therapy prior to medication administration. Although the control group consistently exhibited significant correlations and the psilocybin group did not, the between-group differences in correlation strength were not statistically significant. These findings underscore the clinical relevance of self-compassion in AUD treatment but suggest that self-compassion may not mediate outcomes when psilocybin is administered as part of therapy. Larger studies with additional mechanistic analyses are needed to further clarify how self-compassion interacts with psychological processes and pharmacological interventions in shaping treatment response, ultimately informing improvements to psilocybin-assisted therapy for AUD.","journal":null,"year":2025,"id":558232,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9548,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":714078,"name":"Petros Petridis","orcid":"0000-0001-7608-5723","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":864217,"name":"Richard J. Zeifman","orcid":"0000-0003-3478-4483","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1459129,"name":"Max Link","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1113231,"name":"Matthew J. Cordova","orcid":"0000-0003-0562-1407","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":614808,"name":"Michael P. Bogenschutz","orcid":"0000-0003-4530-3470","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":864216,"name":"Gabrielle Agin-Liebes","orcid":"0000-0002-9754-229X","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:55:25.969263Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}